Pan Pacific Delight Café
by Kuro49
Summary: Coffeeshop!AU. Mako is a rookie barista, Chuck bakes cakes, and Raleigh is (secretly) really good at latte art.


Originally a minifill on tumblr, inspired by a coffeeshop!AU graphic, that got out of control really really fast. I mean, I know a whole lot more about latte art than I care to know at this point. Pairing wise, it is slight Mako/Raleigh, and Team Hot Dads! :D But really, that's it, this is just a coffeeshop!AU where everyone is alive and everything is sweet and fluff.

In other words, I apologize for everything that this turned out to be.

XXX

**Pan Pacific Delight Café**

XXX

In all honesty, Raleigh Becket didn't mean to sit down for a cup of coffee.

Hell, he didn't even like coffee all that much. It had always been Yancy who liked the caffeine, Yancy who enjoyed the smell of fresh grounded beans in the air of their tiny apartment in the morning when he was still speaking in yawns and half-hearted attempts. Yancy who also signed off on this renovation project as a favour for a friend of a friend, because yes, the Beckets are totally pointing fingers to Tendo Choi for this one.

In all honesty, however, Raleigh was the one with the sweet tooth. He always liked the cakes instead.

.

But she asked, and not even Stacker Pentecost was ever good with saying no to Mako Mori.

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

"Table for one?"

Glancing down from the Pan Pacific Delight sign hanging above the entrance to the coffee shop, Raleigh Becket startles when he sees her. Her voice may be soft but it is every bit edge, and he nods only because he can't seem to speak at all when she is all dark hair and darker eyes.

"This way please."

The place is made of worn wood, well used chairs, and mismatched tables. She leads him to one where he can see the sea and the span of empty beaches down by the shoreline.

He doesn't know what it is about her but he does know she is something special. She is turning halfway from his table, a menu lying in her wake, when he asks, his smile a small tentative thing that fits over his lips, "so, Mako, what would you recommend?"

The curve of her name leaves a familiar taste on his tongue, he doesn't know how, he has never even met her before.

"How'd—?" She looks surprised but she recovers just as fast when Raleigh flickers his eyes to the name tag pinned to her shirt. And her returning smile is almost like looking into a mirror. "My father makes a good cup of coffee if you'd like."

"Well—"

"She means the man makes a _mean_ cup of coffee."

The voice that interrupts him belongs to a kid, and Raleigh gets to call him that only because he has at least a couple of years on the other man. His eyes are narrowed, brown hair glimmering an almost ginger from the sunlight streaking through the opened windows. And while he dwarfs Mako with his height and the taut pull of his grey shirt over his shoulders, she gives him a sharp elbow to the side all the same with barely a second glance.

"That's a customer, Chuck, don't be rude."

But Chuck's scowl only deepens as he rubs at his side with a wince, Mako rolls her eyes, and Raleigh can't help but smile just a little harder as he explains himself.

"Actually, I'm not really a customer, well, I mean, I could be, I _would_ like that cup of coffee." He motions to the duffle bag by his feet and the worn logo of the Becket name. "But I'm also the private contractor Mr. Pentecost hired for PPDC's renovation. Raleigh Becket."

He holds out a hand and she shakes it even as her eyes glint, a mix of surprise and dawning realization. "…I expected you to be a little different, Mr. Becket."

"We expected someone more capable." Chuck wipes down the table next to them and adds, unapologetic and just the perfect amount of asshole enunciated into every word. (If being a douchebag is an art, Raleigh is pretty sure this kid has perfected it.) But then he crouches down on the cobblestone ground and gives the bulldog that has been wandering around the coffee shop a good scratch behind its floppy ears, "isn't that right, handsome?"

The dog barks.

Raleigh refuses to believe that the kid has trained his dog's barking to once for yes and twice for no. Still, he wouldn't put it pass him.

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

The man Mako brings back is all presence. His back rigid and it takes everything for Raleigh to stay still and hold that gaze steady as the man rests his eyes on him.

"So, you're Raleigh Becket."

"Yes, sir."

"Stacker Pentecost, I spoke with your brother on the phone."

"Yeah, Yance's just finishing off a project for another day or two." That's not a smile but it's not quite a frown, so Raleigh continues with a firm nod, taking the small win as he goes. "I can start on a preliminary, give you an estimate on the extent of the renovation, a breakdown of the costs involved, and a schedule depending on when you want us to start."

"I don't want to close the entire place down for the renovation." Pentecost looks around the coffee shop, and there in those eyes, Raleigh finds something akin to love and years and years of dedication. Raleigh finds that he can't _not_ respect that. The man looks back at him, and it's still not quite a smile but it is something very close to it. "So, it's a long term project, I hope you boys understand that."

"I understand, sir."

"Good. Have a coffee, it's on the house." He turns to go, smile faint as he looks towards Mako. And Raleigh watches as her eyes go bright, it looks a little like Christmas morning.

"Here Mr. Becket," she pushes the menu into his hands, smile wide from the approval, from the way her father has deemed her ready to make a cup for a customer, "pick anything you like."

And it's contagious, the way he itches to smile at the sight of hers. So he looks down at the menu instead.

"…How about a Crimson Latte?" He points at the list, tucked right between the Cherno Mocha and the Striker Cappuccino. "And call me Raleigh, Mako."

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

Years before, it had just been him and his brother.

(And years beyond that, there was also his mom, Jazmine, and a dad that had always been absent before he was gone altogether in one.) But really, it wasn't as sad as it sounded. The Beckets were made of two, Yancy had Raleigh, and Raleigh had Yancy, and that had always been the most important thing. Their lives had never revolved around much, other than each other, it didn't need to.

They were never good at much, not at school or at sports. But they did good work with their hands, and construction hadn't been too bad of a choice at the time.

They were happy as they were, and years later, it had still been just the two of them (until now).

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

He meets everybody in the span of three days.

And when he says everybody, he literally means everybody. Not just the baker behind half of the amazing cakes in the display case (Raleigh learns the very first day that Chuck has been the one to bake the other half) but everyone else who is a regular at the Pan Pacific Delight Café.

Hercules Hansen is an old friend of Tendo (but really, who isn't friends with Tendo Choi?) and apparently has also been the chief pastry chef of a number of fine restaurants in his younger days. He is everything his son is not, the contrast almost jarring when Raleigh sees them standing next to each other in the kitchen. Raleigh is only good at a few things in life but he has eaten his share of sweets in his days, and the Hansens are good together, he can taste it in the cakes they make.

The Wei triplets are regulars who come in every other day, basketball in toll, sweat dripping off their foreheads, looking like they have just ran a couple miles. And Raleigh guesses he's not entirely wrong when they order three iced tea and gulp it all down just as Mako brings it to their table. She tells him they are on the university's varsity basketball team, and have practices every other day in the courts just a block away from here. She also tells him, it's impossible to tell them apart.

Like clockwork, Tuesdays are date night and the Kaidanovskys always like to start their early evenings off with a good cup of mocha. They like to sit by the windows and share ear buds, his rings tapping against the table in tune with the music and her rings against his, her hand over his. Out of curiosity, Raleigh once asks them what they listen to, and Sasha has replied, smile a feral thing, "Ukrainian Hard House."

Newton and Hermann, or Newt and Dr. Gottlieb as they insist he calls them, tell him PPDC has the perfect atmosphere for writing their thesis and reading through the latest publishing journal articles. They go on to explaining the journal articles but Raleigh's intelligence has never extended so far. And what a strange pair they are, Mako once mentions that they are graduate students, except they both have doctorates in another field already. Raleigh just deems Newt's tattoos a little on the wild side.

Chuck, on the other hand, continues to be banished to either the kitchen or behind the cashier counter, by Mako, Herc, or Pentecost himself after his tenth insulting comment in a span of three minutes. And while Raleigh dearly enjoys a good slice of Slattern Cheesecake or Chuck's Mutavore Mousse, he isn't all that eager for the protests that come every time.

"I'm not selling my cakes to the likes of that guy, Mori!"

And Mako will roll her eyes as she pushes him back into the kitchen, demanding that he makes another fresh batch of Otachi Cupcakes for the display case because Newt is buying another dozen for the staff meeting the university's science division is having tomorrow.

.

"Neat place, ain't it?"

Raleigh doesn't startle when Tendo Choi sits down in front of him, his usual smile in place like those ridiculous suspenders and bright red bowties. No, Raleigh only laughs as he nods in agreement because in the span of three days, PPDC has already dug its roots into him with a vice grip.

"And it's going to be better when the kid and I get it done." Yancy says as he joins the two of them, a smudge of white paint drying over his cheek. "She's going to be a beauty."

Yancy looks at his little brother, smiles at the way Raleigh looks at the place, barely halfway through with the renovation and already in love. And it's not even just PPDC itself, but the people and the history they have with this place.

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

It is two weeks since, and it will be another two weeks at the very least. But he is leaning over the counter, watching her work, fascinated by the way determination makes her knit her brows together in concentration as she pours the milk into the tilted cup.

"Have you tried any other forms?" Raleigh asks, taking a bite into the sandwich in one hand, and wiping the sweat from his forehead in the other. Raleigh has been wrestling with the rotting floorboards of their storage for an entire afternoon, the heat suffocating in the basement where the ocean breeze doesn't reach.

She looks up from her perfect rosette, and arches an eyebrow at him. "Why? It's the taste that matters."

He isn't taken back, he has seen her work, her way around the coffee and the machines, and has tasted enough cups to know how she takes after her father. "Because it's fun. Of course, the taste matters but who doesn't like something cute on their coffee, like a flower or a teddy bear?"

She looks at him, really looks at him, dark eyes intent like she is evaluating him or just trying to read his mind. And he knows it should probably bother him, but her gaze leaves him smiling, something just as soft as her voice when she says.

"Show me what you mean, Raleigh."

.

They don't see Yancy grinning when he goes back to the basement to finish tearing out the floorboards Raleigh has been working on before their lunch break. They also don't see Herc pulling Stacker back into the kitchen.

"Stack, quit it." Herc has flour dusted over the line of jaw, and leaves powder white handprints when he grips Stacker's shirt to keep the man from barging back into the storefront. "Remember what Tendo said? Becket is a nice kid, stop trying to ruin every relationship Miss Mori is trying to have. I'm surprised those triplets still come by."

"Herc," and Pentecost says his name like it is the only thing keeping him from building a wall between Mako and the younger Becket. From the way he has threatened one of the Wei triplets, which one Herc honestly can't tell, that he will bring the apocalypse to them if they even think about trying anything with Mako, it probably is at this point. "Choi also thinks three cups of coffee and a bagel make up a legitimate food group."

"The kid's good, give him a chance." Herc repeats, feeling like his family has swelled to twice its original size. "Here help me with the Kaiju Blue jello. The scientists want a tray for a staff meeting, and Sasha and Aleksis also ordered another tray for a hard rock concert they're hosting or something."

And then he is shoving a bowl of sloshing blue liquid into Stacker's hands. Herc doesn't answer the man's mutterings (who names these things anyway, I never signed off on something like Kaiju Blue _jello_, like he is personally more offended by the jello aspect than the fact that someone has named something edible Kaiju Blue). He probably should be, considering the fact that neither of them has even anticipated that the neon blue jello could be such a hit with the regulars.

Herc only turns back to the cake he has been frosting before Stacker has interrupted him with his struggling grasp on fatherhood.

"Herc," Stacker says after a moment, when the whisking of the bright blue liquid and the baker's piping the only sound in the kitchen. Herc glances up after a pause, both of them lured into contentment by the consistency in the work. Reaching over the short distance between them, Stacker wipes away the flour from Herc's jaw with the pad of his thumb, and says, "thanks."

The two of them have never been good with words, never needed it much, but this is simple. And they have always been good with simple.

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

She is standing by his side, one hand on her hip and the one pressed flat against the counter, watching his hands with intent in her eyes. The milk flows straight and smooth into the tilted cup, his movement easy and fluid as he pours.

"Where'd you learn to do this?" Mako asks when he pushes over a cup, like an offering to her. There is something like delight, a simple kind of joy when she looks down at the flower blooming white in the creamy brown of the espresso shot.

"…I would say it's great for picking up girls, but no one really pays attention to their barista." Raleigh gives her a shrug, and a smile that is more than a little bit embarrassment. He doesn't flush but it's a close thing. "But really, its kind of Yancy's fault."

"Your brother?"

Raleigh nods, glancing away with a half smile. "I'm not really a coffee person, but Yancy is. Needs a cup before he can function like a normal person in the morning. So for his birthday a few years back, I bought him a fancy coffee machine. Except he is horrible in the kitchen, he burnt water on more than one occasion."

She doesn't laugh but there is amusement bright in her eyes.

"So I started making him these fancy coffees, one thing lead to another, and I became a whole lot more fascinated with latte art than I should." Raleigh says with a grin as he pushes over another cup where a tiny kitten made of foam is perched at the edge of the ceramic. "Got pretty good at it too."

.

Yancy is up on the ladder, in the process of taking down the old light fixtures in the corner when she walks up to him. Her short bleach blonde hair is pulled back in tight braids against the side of her head. Her rings gleam in the sun, lips curving into a blood red smile when she catches his gaze.

"Becket," every word is thick in accent, every syllable twisting in character, "you like music?"

Yancy thinks he can hear a series of groaning from the triplets, but he can't be sure, not when he is so busy, one hand tangled in wires, and the other supporting the lights. "Um, I guess?"

"Come then, this Saturday." She waves a post card sized pamflet up at him, the paper a deep military green as she drops it on to the top of his duffel bag. Her smile doesn't waver, rather it only widens as she sees Tendo coming their way. Handing him one, she adds. "The good doctor, Newton, he will be playing."

Tendo bites into a bagel, one hand still wrapped around a coffee cup with what might have been a foam cat in it as he watches her go. "...Yancy, my man, you have no idea what you just signed up for."

"What?"

Tendo holds up the invitation to the concert with a raised eyebrow, and answers. "They listen to Ukrainian Hard House, Yance. Even your brother knows."

"If you have a problem with that, Mr. Choi, you have a problem with life." She calls out at him from the other side of the room, where she has taken a seat next to her husband once more. She doesn't look at the pair in the corner when she continues, rather she has her eyes trained on the triplets protesting at the table next to them. "We can fix that."

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

In retrospection, it was a job.

One they took out of courtesy to Tendo, Tendo and his decade long friendship to both Stacker Pentecost and the Becket brothers. So when the man called with an offer, neither of them anticipated it as anything but just another job.

But if Raleigh could change anything, it wouldn't be this.

And Yancy would tease him, in between tearing out the old pipes from the washroom in the corner and sanding the back wall for a fresh coat of paint that isn't flaking and cracking, but Raleigh didn't mind. He liked these people, and it wasn't really his fault that he was good with remembering the names and faces of those who came through PPDC.

In retrospection, his job had always been his life anyway.

So what is another one?

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

It's not so much a countdown as it is seeing the end from where they stand. And it won't be long now, a few more days at most and the place will be complete.

The wood doesn't go, neither do the mismatched tables or the chairs with the worn polish finish from years of being used. Yancy and Raleigh both keep everything that they can manage to salvage from the original building (because no one makes them like they used to and PPDC is something unique with the smell of fresh coffee having seeped deep into its bones).

The kitchen has been the most difficult aspect of the renovation, largely because their schedule has to work around Chuck's, what with him running his mouth off at the very sight of Raleigh standing in the same room with him. While he isn't entirely wrong about the sanitation reasons, they know the kid is also a little bit obsessive about the right side of the kitchen he has claimed as his own.

Perhaps Yancy has been playing the older brother for so long, it takes him little to no effort for him to placate Chuck into taking a break, one that lasts about three hours and counting, working the day at the cashier counter instead.

Some imagine Yancy charming the kid with one of his too bright grins, and some imagine that some sort of bribe has been offered, when really it went something along the lines of: Come on, Chuck, do you really want to see Rals' face for longer than you have to? In which, Chuck scoffs and clears out of the kitchen for the Becket brothers with their toolboxes in one hand and their duffel bags slung on the shoulder of the other.

"Thank you, Chuckie!" Yancy calls out when they finally exit the kitchen. But it is almost nice, at least not quite as irritated as he can make it out to be when Chuck answers with a shout. "Don't call me that, Becket!"

.

They finish two days ahead of schedule.

And Stacker is just exiting the back office when he sees them crowded around the counter.

"What is this?"

"Raleigh's latte art."

There is a line of coffee cups on the counter top, each with increasingly complicated patterns and pictures made with microfoam of the drink. There is the standard rosette, a few hearts, and what might have been a depiction of Max that Chuck is drinking from. He narrows his eyes and hates the way they are all looking at him like they are expecting something.

"Stacker, you know he's good." Tendo says, grin hidden from view with the coffee cup he is tipping back.

"Mori's coffee is still better than his." Chuck says, but he is drinking it, and that has always been more telling. The kid has grown up drinking the good stuff, Herc has disciplined at least that much into the boy.

"But she can only make fern leaves." Yancy shrugs off the glare Stacker sends him, and grins at his brother instead. He isn't holding both thumbs up, but he might as well with the way he is looking like sunshine, "not that it isn't great but people like variety, unpredictable things. Little surprises like these goes a long way, we all know that."

Stacker hates that he isn't wrong, he also hates that there have been days where Mako, despite her competence, can't handle the amount of traffic that comes through PPDC. And it is like Herc can read his mind too because he speaks up next.

"Take him on part time for the busy days, a trial run." Herc offers, looking like he has already won with the way he moves out of the way so Mako can take his spot by his side.

"Father," Mako speaks up, eyes wide and near sparkling, "let Raleigh make you one."

.

Stacker Pentecost has never been able to say no to Mako if she asks for anything. And this time, it is not a question. But a request, and well, Stacker Pentecost has never been able to deny her that either.

.

He motions the younger Becket to the coffee machine, the one Mako has nicknamed Danger in her early days with the machinery, when she would still burn herself with the edge of the hot plate or the steam wand.

Raleigh Becket has dried paint in both his hair and the back of his calloused hands when he pours the microfoam into the dark brown of the coffee. The milk swirling, and the white foam rising.

It isn't deliberately complicated, but beautiful in its simplicity.

Stacker doesn't need to taste it to know how it will feel, velvet smooth across his tongue. He has decades of experience, of having made and tasted the best among the best. It's not going to be the perfect cup of coffee, it's probably far from one. But it's good, and Stacker Pentecost doesn't see a lot of it coming through his shop, and willing to stay like this one is.

He takes a sip, and lets the rest of them hold their breath for a moment longer before he says, taking delight in the way Herc rolls his eyes.

"Fine, he's hired."

*･゜ﾟ･* *･゜ﾟ･*

It is a week into his first day, the end of his trial run.

"Did you let Max get to it first?" Raleigh asks, staring at the plate that Chuck drops off in front of him. It's not the usual slice of leftover cake that didn't sell however, not with how it looked, lop-sided and smashed.

"Dad told me to let you try it." Chuck tells him, brandishing the fork like it is a weapon.

"So you punched a hole through it before you deemed it worthy for the Becket boy?" And it's a careful extract when he takes the fork from Chuck's hand. But the kid doesn't deny it, he simply offers, "I'm trying something new."

"Is it rat poison?" Raleigh asks deadpanned even as he is already bringing a bite to his mouth.

"Don't tempt me, Becket." And then he turns on his heels, heading back into the kitchen.

Raleigh shakes his head with exasperation, because it isn't fair how great the kid can bake cakes, with the perfect amount of sweetness and just enough cream that seems to melt on the flat of the tongue. It's not so much irritating as it is aggravating that Chuck knows this just as much, going back with Max at his heels without even waiting for a response.

"This is his way of saying welcome to the family, you know."

The blue in her hair looks neon in the sunlight when she sits down in front of him. Mako has her smile hidden behind her coffee mug, something faint as she watches him take another bite. Her gaze follows as he sucks the silver fork into his mouth.

It takes a second to blink, and then another one to look away before she is licking the foam from her lips, and says.

"This is mine."

Mako pushes a cup over to him, the aroma of a fresh brew that is just stronger than the soft wafting mix of sea salt and wood that surrounds them. Taking his fork from his hand, Mako tastes a corner of Chuck's latest creation. And while her lips don't curl into a smile when they wrap around the utensil, it is a close damn thing, he can see it in the way her dark eyes look straight at him with nothing but warmth.

"Welcome to PPDC, Raleigh."

XXX Kuro


End file.
